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©Copyright 2006 Hygeia Foundation,
Inc. All rights reserved |
The Hygeia Foundation Inc.®...Closing the 'Digital Divide' |
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Visit the Original International Neighborhoods where Hygeia Maternal and Child Healthcare Systems (Kiosks) have been placed... Hygeia Foundation Headquarters Learn about Hygeia and the Connecticut SIDS Center... How to Contribute to the Foundation...
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"The
digital divide is the gap in making use of opportunities available from the digital
revolution due to insufficient access, capacity, and content." The Hygeia Foundation® is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization whose mission is to comfort those who grieve the loss of a pregnancy or newborn child, and to alleviate the angst which accompanies the parenting and caring for critically ill neonates. The Hygeia Foundation Inc.® makes universally available 'new technologies' to assuage the hurt, grieving and sorrow which accompany these losses. Furtherrmore, it serves to provide general healthcare information regarding Maternal and Child Health to international, neighborhood communities. Women centers, neighborhood health centers, genetic clinics, newborn special care units, pediatric clinics and the ministries are replete with patients grieving the loss of their children, born and yet to be born as well as enduring infertilty and high risk pregnancy complication. Hospitals are providing what support and healthcare education they can, but many residents of medically under-served neighborhoods are unaware of nor take advantage of such support and information. Likewise, Internet access may be limited in these communities It is the intention of the Hygeia Foundation® to identify these neighborhoods of women and their families and bring to them healthcare information, relevant prose, poetry and literature, and an ability to share feelings using the advantages of the contemporary technology of the Internet. Using the modality of the Internet, the Hygeia Foundation Inc.® strives to provide Maternal and Child Healthcare Resource Centers for perinatal, neonatal and childhood health, illness, loss and bereavement in medically underserved and economically disadvantaged neighborhood communities; locally, nationally and internationally. These centers provide "universal" access to maternal and child health information and online support. The Hygeia Foundation Inc. ® thus endeavors to provide avenues of education, solace, and communication to all individuals who desire such access despite their level of computer literacy, general literacy, socio-economic environment or cultural background. In realizing its mission, the Hygeia Foundation Inc.® is striving to influence the general as well as the obstetrical health of economically disadvantaged, at-risk populations, world-wide. The Hygeia Foundation Inc.® through its website, www.hygeia.org offers the most comprehensive online program for perinatal loss and bereavement, maintaining a growing database (now over 28,000) of registered users, world-wide, who communicate and share stories of loss with each other through the program. Because the pall of grief does not discriminate, it is the conviction of the Hygeia Foundation Inc. ® that all individuals searching for solace should have access to this contemporary technology, particularly those medically underserved and indigent families who grieve in silence over their loss but cannot take advantage of this modality. Initial Mission Statement 1997 The purpose of the HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® is to use and make universally available 'new technologies' to assuage the hurt, grieving and sorrow which accompany the loss of a pregnancy or newborn child and to alleviate the angst which accompanies the parenting and caring for critically ill neonates. Toward this purpose: 1. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® will endeavor to serve as a paradigm for healthcare and bereavement resources in neighborhood community centers, libraries, women's centers, pre-natal genetic services and neonatal and maternal special care units using newer, 'high technology' to offer and share age-old feelings and lessons and to spawn humanism out of such technology. 2. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® will strive to further develop a national and international presence on the "Internet/World Wide Web(including an extensive database) which can provide avenues of education solace and communication to every person who desires such access despite their level of computer literacy, general literacy, socio-economic environment or cultural background or their availability(or lack of availability) to medical care. To accomplish this, hardware and software will be made accessible through Hygeia® Health Systems established in community centers, libraries, women's centers, perinatal and neonatal intensive care units and genetic counseling centers. 3. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® will strive to influence the general and obstetrical health of the economically disadvantaged, at-risk populations through education regarding the necessity and availability of healthcare and in particular perinatal services in an effort to improve the overall health of the members of these commuiities and reduce the incidence of pregnancy loss, neonatal demise and prematurity. This will be accomplished as a "secondary" gain from their involvement with the Hygeia® Health Systems. 4. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® will strive to educate healthcare providers and institutions as to the significant emotional morbidity which accompanies perinatal and neonatal loss and illness and to offer methods and programs to aid in their education of these very difficult situations. 5. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC.® will strive to establish networks and collaboration among medical professionals, medical schools, hospitals, and support services whose philosophies and goals are similar to those of Hygeia®. 6. HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC. will seek and apply for funds and grants ( from private and public sources) in order to implement and maintain the mission of the foundation. Discussion: Perinatal loss entails a "unique bereavement" and is an "exceptional" type of loss. While "the death of a baby is a catastrophe and a tragedy which shatters the good, secure and confident life in a matter of moments," the sharing of feelings of such profound loss with others undergoing similar losses-that is a "community of loss" can actually beget a healing experience. Women's centers, genetic clinics, maternal and newborn special care units, and pediatric clinics are replete with worried, if not grieving patients. Hospitals provide one level of support through their social services, medical and nursing services, and more recently bereavement programs. Counseling sessions are offered and many support groups and self- help groups have been successfully established locally, nationally and internationally, but many of the populations of medically under-served patients and their families do not or cannot take advantage of them. Hygeia Foundation, Inc.® will direct its energies and innovations towards providing 'universal access' to the aforementioned resources for all families who have endured these losses, (The scope of this problem is vast as in the United States each year there are more than 500,00 pregnancy losses-upwards to 25% of all pregnancies!) but will have a specific focus on the national (inner city and rural) and international population of women and their families at even higher risk for pregnancy losses-those from medically under-served populations. The Hygeia Foundation, Inc.® will furthermore strive to become the prototype for a vehicle to bring to this population the advantages of "online information and communication' which has been qualitatively demonstrated to be helpful in dealing with this difficult subject matter of perinatal and neonatal loss though contemporary technologies in a "friendly," human-computer interface. The Hygeia® Maternal and Child Healthcare Resource Centers will bring reviewed content of medical imnformation available online and specific features found at http://hygeia.org via strategically placed multimedia computer systems, to targeted populations; i.e. those who have no access to computer technology. The conception of the Hygeia® Maternal and Child Healthcare Resource Centers arises from the well- established dogma that the Internet demographics favor the "haves;" that is those who have a computer, have the training and education to use it, have the money to afford it, and understand the need for its use. A gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" exists and is widening. Because the pall of grief does not live or die alone as it thrusts its pain at our hearts, and because human hearts bleed the same across all boundaries without prejudice, it is my conviction that all individuals searching for solace should have access to this contemporary technology. Although some might argue that communication and conferencing online might disrupt the socialization and non-verbal cues which accompany face to face conversation-i.e. personalization, body language and facial oral expressions, Hygeia® and other online medical and support sites have demonstrated not only the value of such a service, but an interest in the search for and study of this material. Hygeia® combines three platforms to accomplish its mission, yet each could stand alone to provide an online service. These platforms however best function in synergy and by providing a universally accessible site where grieving can be addressed, new horizons become available for women and their families, world-wide, to address such grieving of a lost pregnancy or newborn child. Only through the electronic medium of the Internet could this be accomplished. I therefore contend, albeit qualitatively, the value of Hygeia® and the need for its penetration into the domain of the underserved, non-computer user population. Such is the raison-d'ętre for the HYGEIA FOUNDATION, INC. "Communications is the web of human society. The structure of a communication system with its more or less well defined channels is in a sense the skeleton of the social body which envelops it. The content of communications is of course the very substance of human intercourse. The flow of communications determines the direction and the pace of dynamic social development."
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©Copyright 2006 Hygeia Foundation,
Inc. All rights reserved |